AkuRoku - Painful Hearts and Gentle Hands
by Rae'vyn Phiar
Summary: Xion goes to Axel for help when Roxas explodes at her, talking about feeling something that she wouldn't understand and that shouldn't even exist inside him. Axel then goes to try to get Roxas to talk at him. Thanks for reading, reviewing, faving, and following! Rated M for SUICIDE MENTIONS AND KISSES OF THE YAOI TYPE! Thanks again my lovelies!


_This is in return for the shitty one I wrote a long time ago. I had this idea for a while (meaning a week) and I've just now been able to put it all together on paper. Hope you guys enjoy!_

 _Thanks for reading, reviewing, faving, and following! Please tell your friends about my content if you liked it, it may help me to find new ideas for prompts if they suggest anything! Also, please review! Anything, and I mean_ _ **anything**_ _, helps me out! And please ask for whatever you want here; I won't judge! Thanks again!_

 _Rated M for SUICIDE MENTIONS AND KISSES OF THE YAOI TYPE! I don't own Axel, Roxas, or Kingdom Hearts._

 **AkuRoku – Painful Hearts and Gentle Hands**

"Roxas, let me in…" Axel waited for a reply from the closed door, his hand radiating heat from the fear and anger that he was trying to hold in. He was prepared for the worst, but he wasn't sure he could handle whatever was inside that door. His fire was going to implode the wooden barrier if the teen wouldn't let him in…

The room was silent, and that only made the fire more violate as Axel grew more anxious. The redhead sighed heavily and dropped the hand that was poised at the doorknob, the orb of metal glowing a dull cherry. "You can't stay in there forever, kid. Xion came to me crying because of whatever you did, and I just want to see what's wrong with you…"

Footsteps that gradually grew louder, a sniffle, then the footsteps retreated. Axel strained his ears to hear the tiny voice from within. "It's unlocked now…"

The elder opened the door silently, the shaft of white light from his entrance cutting through the darkness of the room, the only light filling it the pale Kingdom Hearts that the Organization was creating. Blue eyes were turned silvery by that light, the teen sitting on his bed cross-legged. There are silver tracks down his cheeks too, and the moon made his paled face even paler.

The sound that the doorknob made as the door clicked shut was deafening in the endless silence, the elder man somehow frightened to let his footsteps made noise on the stone underneath them as he carefully made his way to the bed and sat down next to the blonde teen.

"Hey…" Axel said, his greeting but a whisper, which suddenly surprised him. The teen twitched, his stony face shifting for a moment before his eyes dropped from the sky to the inky folds of the jacket around his knees. The elder tried to look into those eyes, but the teen refused to look up at him. Roxas nodded in response.

"What happened?" Anything to get him to explain… Xion had come up to him, crying and scared out of her mind. She was saying things that sounded like gibberish before Axel had taken time to try to calm her down out of her hysterical state. She told him that she had just been talking with Roxas after the first of their two missions today, during a little break the two had in between, and he said something about feeling something inside. The ebony-haired girl had broken into laughter then, but sobered when the blonde boy turned to her, a pained expression on his face.

She had asked if he was hurt and he only said that it hurt inside, grabbing at his chest. Then he'd started talking about how it was strange that the rest of the organization all claims to fake the emotions and that he wasn't faking it anymore but it hurt to feel it all. But he still wanted to feel them, if only to understand something that he wouldn't tell her.

"Xion's scared and confused and so am I…" he said, his voice a little stronger, more authoritative. "Well, not scared, but confused and worried for the both of you. So start talking, please… Even a little, so that we can try to help you…" Axel's attempts at trying to softly coax the teen out of his silent state were angering him inside, evident by the active fire that he was hiding in his palm.

Then Roxas bit his lip, as if trying to hold something in, his body started to tremble, and his eyes slid closed. More tears slid down his cheeks, the fat beads dripping down onto the chest of his coat and mingling with the teeth of the zipper.

"Are you hurting? Like, physically? Did the mission hurt you?" The boy shook his head, the trembling growing silently stronger. The redhead tensed himself up in case something bad was going to happen.

"Okay, then… Did Xion or another member of the Organization hurt you?" The blonde stayed still for a moment, then shook his head no again. Axel breathed an internal sigh of relief. At least he didn't need to burn someone within an inch of their, well… _existence_ for making this boy like this.

"What's hurting you?" The elder was getting an idea of what this might be, and it couldn't exist within them. The blonde lifted a smooth hand to his chest and gripped the place over where his physical heart beat tightly. The redhead saw tight wrinkles when he dropped the black-gloved hand back into his lap.

"Did someone hurt you… in the way we cannot feel?" Roxas' hands shook ever more violently as he nodded again. Axel touched his shoulder lightly and felt him shiver before relaxing a bit. Gradually, before asking the next question, the elder gently coaxed the teen to relax, but he wasn't able to stop him from trembling, nor to make the blonde look at him.

"Was it someone here, in the Castle?" The blonde nodded slowly and the redhead felt him tense up again. He tried to relax him, but nothing helped this time. It only seemed to make it worse, like what he was doing was the thing that forced him to…

"Was… Was it…" The words failed to obey him as a heavy, painful lump grew in the base of Axel's throat. He swallowed past it and spoke clearly now. "Was it me who made you hurt like this…?"

Roxas hunched his shoulders in an attempt to hide what the elder knew as a pained expression before the redhead gripped his shoulders and turned him around, quickly gripping his chin gently and tilting his chin to gaze into those pained sapphire eyes. What he saw shocked him, the volume of the pain and the strain of hiding it all away for only god knows how long… He saw tired, pained eyes that just wanted to end everything, in the depths of them something that Roxas knew would end everything he was feeling but…

"Tell Xion… That I'm sorry…" The blonde then slumped forward into the elder's chest, gripping his coat and crying bitterly into his shoulder. Words were lost for the redhead, the fire in his hands and even his very body extinguished as he realized what the boy was feeling. The pain he must have gone through to even be able to feel such a thing… Was he growing a heart…?

Words were lost in the man's jacket as the teen's sobs only drowned them out. The redhead lifted his hands to hold him waist and his shoulders tightly in his embrace, whispering words of comfort and understanding to the blonde. Every second was a minute, every minute an hour, and every hour an eternity… It took over two hours to calm the teen.

"If it's not going to hurt you…" Axel chose his words carefully as he felt the boy finally calm down entirely. "Will you tell me what you're, well… feeling toward me?" The felt the teen sigh deeply and he watched as he moved to sit across from him. He pale face had life in it again as he glanced down at the elder's hands that sat in his lap and turned slightly pink before speaking.

"I don't… understand it fully yet… but…" He glanced at the elder, looking for an answer and finding curiosity and understanding and warmth. "I think it's something more than just being friends…" He shook his head and closed his eyes. "I'm just not sure what to name it, I guess…"

Axel smiled lightly and saw the scared tears threaten in his brilliant blue eyes again. "No, it's okay if you don't understand it yet… You're okay now…" He opened his arms, inviting the younger Nobody into his embrace once again and had the wind knocked out of him when the teen wrapped his arms around his shoulders tightly. The elder lowered his head to the teen's ear. "I've been feeling the same, but to you…"

Roxas jumped and then softened his hold, backing up a little. "What…?"

"I said that I feel the same toward you. I just thought it would be awkward to tell you, so I just suppressed it… We both deal with emotions differently that way…" He lifted a hand and smoothed back the teen's blonde spikes a little. "You can't hold the emotions in like I do… But it's gonna be okay now…"

The teen nodded into his chest and then felt a gentle touch to his cheek. Then he went red. "Did you just kiss me…?" Axel's eyes were startled, looking for an escape and retreat.

"Why? Too soon?" The blonde shook his head, a weak smile on his face. His face softened in color and then he lifted his hand to touch the elder's cheek. "But… Is it okay if I…?" He moved in close, pausing for a moment to get rid of his nervousness, and then met the redhead's lips softly. Axel moved in almost instantly to strengthen the touch, cupping the side of the blonde's face and pulling him closer gently. His emerald eyes fluttered closed just as he felt the teen break the kiss.

"It is completely okay if you want to kiss me like that, Roxas…" The teen went red, only a few shades darker than the elder's face was, before the elder smiled warmly and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. The blonde settled on his shoulder, feeling his strong heartbeat against his hand as he rested his palm there. "But no telling Xion, okay? She's already overwhelmed, and I think you owe her an apology at some point."

"Sure… But later…" Roxas sounded calm and relaxed, every trace of how he had been before lost. "I'm sorry about earlier… How was she?"

"Freaked out. Very freaked out. It took me only five minutes to calm her down though… I've been here for almost two hours trying to get you calmed down…" Those blue eyes widened and Axel laughed gently. "It's fine. I don't mind taking the time."

The blonde settled down and closed his eyes. "I have another mission today…"

"I know. But later, like you said…"

Roxas nodded, then swallowed. His voice trembled as he spoke next… "I don't think I could've waited another day like that… I was thinking about ending it all… You could see that, couldn't you?"

"I did… But you don't need to talk about that…" Axel touched the hand over his heart and held it gently before squeezing it. "Because when you do, my heart hurts… Just thinking about you not being here makes it hurt…" He smiled. "But we don't need to worry over that because I know you won't be scared like that again. You can tell me anything, okay?"

The blonde nodded and closed his eyes, the horrible ghosts of the dark, painful past finally released from within. His trust strengthened and the slow, steady beat of the elder's heart against his hand and his ear slowly lulled him to a much-needed sleep.

Axel felt the boy against him relax and the slow, gentle breathing against his chest. "You're gonna be okay now… And so am I…"


End file.
